I've been working on 2. It'll take a while as the system I use 4 dev purposes is being...um, "upgraded" (don't ask) That's the bad news. The good news is that I made serious inroads until this little problem, so the future looks bright ;-)
On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 3:03 AM, Ivan Vučica <[email protected]> wrote: > 1. Look > People still think GNUstep is "ugly". This has changed only recently > and needs more exposure. > > 2. No DE > People do not use GNUstep since large Linux distros don't offer a > desktop environment. GNUstep apps don't feel natural in other DEs, and > probably don't integrate with their services (e.g. under Gnome, > address book APIs should probably use Evolution as a store) > > This means users do not get a Mac-like experience of the software just > "fitting in". > > 3. No proven commercial viability > > Mac customers already paid for a relatively expensive, but quality > machine; quite probably they are willing to pay for commercial > software. Linux users are using unpaid software; does it pay off to > spend time to try and sell to them? > > 4. Missing API > > Yesterday I ran into NSViewController that was missing in Debian, and > unfunctional in latest SVN. GNUstep is also missing a lot of "Core" > frameworks: Core Graphics, Core Animation, ... > > 5. Platforms do differ > > If you use sockets, they really do; each has its quirks. > > 6. Packaging and Testing > > To release commercial software on GNUstep platforms, you need to test > on each one. There are a lot of Linux distros. Some methods for > packaging software for commercial distribution increase in difficulty > as the number if libs you use grows. After you package on an OLD > distro (doing so makes it probable that it runs on newer ones) you > need to test on at least a several major ones in various releases. > > Mac has three major releases that you need to support commercially > today in game market: 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6. If you don't need a > publisher, you can do well by covering just 10.6. > > 7. No marketing venues > > With Mac App Store, another marketing opportunity has opened. There > are many nice blogs out there that write about commercial Mac software > in a positive light. > > If I tried to sell, for example, a blog authoring tool for primary > GNUstep platforms (GNU/Linux and BSD), where would I get a positive > review that would reach a significant amount of users that would > actually pay? Or would they complain that I didn't give it out for > free, and race to clone my software for free, out of anger? > > Look up for how much that kind of software sells on Mac. > > These are the primary reasons people don't do it. They may be a thing > of perception. Some of the things might not be true, but the > perception is that they are. Commercial vendors are commercial not for > the fun of it or to be evil, but to pay to their workers so they can > feed their wife and kids. If the market would not be sufficient or > would be unreachable, and the effort seems significant, well, ... > > Suggestion: > Take a look at some popular commercial (or even just proprietary) Mac > software: Socialite, Reeder, Twitter for Mac. Do you really think > porting them would involve just writing GNUmakefiles? > > Regards, > > Ivan Vučica > via phone > > On 24. sij. 2011., at 05:21, "Zhang Weiwu, Beijing" <[email protected] > > wrote: > >> Hi. I have one question as a stupid user: why there is no commercial >> Mac >> OS X application that was ever offered also offer GNU Step binary? >> >> I had been using Mac OS on one computer and gnustep on another for 5 >> years without coming across one application that runs on both. I dimly >> remembered around 3 years ago I even wrote to one of the vendor asking >> them to port to gnustep saying "it's just a re-compilation" and they >> replied they didn't know gnustep could do that and yet it's not a >> priority now for them to test if what I said is true, but would be >> happy >> to do that when they got the time, which usually means forever. >> >> No criticism. I am too stupid to know the detail to comment >> insightfully >> on any topic being discussed here. I am juts being curious why it's >> not >> already happening that a lot of Mac OS applications (and AppStore >> applications) water-flow to Linux users like they did in Apple's new >> world. >> >> Best regards >> >> -- >> 我的博客： >> http://zhangweiwu.ixiezi.com/ >> 网站进化论 －－写给需要网站或后悔有了网站的人 >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss-gnustep mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss-gnustep mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep > -- Besos, abrazos, confeti y aplausos. Jamie Ramone "El Vikingo" _______________________________________________ Discuss-gnustep mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep
